Online postings from Anders Behring Breivik, now detained by Norwegian police for killing 93 people in a shooting rampage and bombing, offer a portrait of a man obsessed with what he views as the threat of multiculturalism and Islam.
In a 1,500-page English manifesto posted hours before the killings, Breivik (32) describes nine years of planning the attacks and his vision for revolution in Europe led by the Knights Templar, an order related to the Freemasonry.
Breivik has a picture posted of himself in a Freemason outfit on the Facebook page bearing his name. In the document entitled '2083 - A European Declaration of Independence,' which Breivik began writing while he was still a member of Norway's opposition Progress Party, he describes how the attacks would form part of a crusade against "cultural Marxism" and the rising "Islamisation" of Europe.
He writes that the massacre would serve as a tool to market the manifesto. While Breivik has confessed to the killings in what was the Nordic nation's deadliest incident since World War II, he has not pleaded guilty, Sveinung Sponheim, Oslo's acting police chief, said at a press conference today.
"He said he believed his actions were atrocious, but in his head they were necessary," Breivik's defence lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norway's TV2.
In a February 17th, 2010, posting on Norwegian website Document.no, Breivik wrote that "the problem is that it often doesn't help that 80 percent of Muslims are so-called 'moderates,' i.e. that they ignore the Koran. It takes very few people to crash a plane."
He added that "for me it would be hypocritical to treat Muslims, Nazis and Marxists differently."
Breivik became a member of the anti-immigrant Progress Party, Norway's second biggest, in 1999 and paid his membership fees until 2004, party spokesman Mazyar Keshvari said in an e- mail yesterday.
Breivik was also a member of the party's youth movement from 1997 to 2007, acting as deputy chairman for one of the local Oslo chapters.
Breivik on his Facebook page lists John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," George Orwell's "1984" and Franz Kafka's The Trial among his favorite books. 'World of Warcraft' and 'Modern Warfare' were his preferred video games. Most of his postings, the last of which was on July 18th, relate to music videos.
"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests," said the single posting on a Twitter account bearing Breivik's name, made on July 17th, paraphrasing Mill, an English philosopher and economist.
Breivik posted a four-part video summarizing his manifesto on YouTube. The chapters are titled "The Rise of Cultural Marxism," "Islamic Colonization," "Hope," and "New Beginning." 2083 refers to the year a new European identity will emerge. Beslan Attacks "You cannot defeat Islamisation or halt/reverse the Islamic colonisation of Western Europe without first removing the political doctrines manifested through multiculturalism/cultural Marxism," Breivik writes in his manifesto.
"Multiculturalism equals the unilateral destruction of Western culture."
Bloomberg